The Subject 2: Further Research
Chapter One
Prologue
The young scientist, her eyes intently staring into the miasma of numbers flashing across the screen before her, sighed dejectedly. Why wasn't the damnable thing working? She thought, and ran her hands through her dark brown hair.
"Rita," she said, not looking up from the computer read-out, "run series seven again, please?"
Rita, the pretty strawberry blonde assistant, jumped up from behind her terminal and entered the correct codes into the bank of computers that lined one wall. She hummed along to the music coming from the CD player atop her terminal table. The White Album was playing, John Lennon singing about the joys of a firearm of high temperature.
The scientist smiled as she watched Rita dance to the beat of the music, punching keys in time with the rhythm. She adored Rita's zest for life, and her ability to have fun, regardless of the hours of boring research she put herself through.
It was important research, the scientist reminded herself. If they could ever get it working, that is. Series seven was a specific voltage and amperage of electrical current, which would pass between two contacts within a large open cylindrical space in the center of the room. As it did so, the electrical current would be translated by the machinery and computers into a single stream of electrons, traveling at twice the speed of light. This stream would then be transmitted to a satellite relay dish on the roof of the building, beamed into space, and reflected back to a receiver dish on the other side of the room, where a second cylinder, much smaller, would convert it back into electrical current.
The possibility of 'broadcasting' energy without a conduit was the driving force of the research. The scientist hoped for the day when solar collection satellites would beam all of earth's energy to collection centers. With the possibility of ending man's reliance on natural resources for power, and no pollution as an after product, the experiment was well worth the effort.
The machinery hummed quietly, there was a brief rise in the pitch of the hum as the current was transformed, and then, silence as it was received and calibrated. The measurements came up on the screen before the scientist. "Overall loss of 40 percent." It said.
She sighed. It was always the same. No matter what amperage or voltage, the final measurement of power was always the same. Not enough to power a flashlight. "Damn." She muttered, and stood up. She stretched to her full height, arms above her head, her back muscles complaining about the amount of time she had spent in the chair.
No worries, though, she knew that she had a nightly back-rub from her lover to look forward to. She wondered to herself what her love was doing right now. Once a rather brilliant scientist in her own right, she now spent her days outside the confines of the laboratory, intent on the study of life in its natural habitat. She was probably at the community college, the scientist reasoned. She took course after course, in no particular order, intent on learning whatever she could by whatever whim struck her at the time. Tonight, it was classes in hypnotherapy, but for what reason, she couldn't say. It didn't matter, the young brunette decided, as long as she was happy, it made sense to her.
The scientist turned around to tell Rita to begin the shut down sequence, and was puzzled by the sudden silence of the lab. Rita had turned off the CD player in mid-wail from Mr. Lennon.
"Rita?" She said. "Is something wrong?"
Rita looked up, her blue eyes glinting. A smile crossed her face, and the scientist shivered at its familiarity. "No, DOCTOR..." The word doctor was filled with sarcastic venom. "There's nothing wrong." In fact..." Rita raised her arm and extended it outward. She was holding something, "in just a moment, everything is going to be just PERFECT."
The young brunette gasped at what Rita was holding. It looked like an oversized remote control, with several buttons and a small display screen somewhat like that of a cellular phone. Her hand went up before her when the device emitted a high-pitched whine that she recognized as its capacitor charging up to fire. It would take approximately three seconds for it to reach full power, and then it would be primed for its intended purpose.
The scientist had a full working knowledge of the device because SHE had invented it.
It was just a whim, never intended for any real use. She had created it just to see if it could be done and once she had successfully tested it, she hid it away in the lab. Why Rita had it she didn't know. Further, she was totally at a loss as to why Rita was pointing it at HER. She wanted to speak, she wanted an explanation for the strange behavior her assistant was exhibiting, but she didn't get the chance to ask.
Rita smirked as her thumb pressed the activation button and the young woman closed her eyes tightly against the sensation of her body coming apart from the inside out. Her skin became hot, tight and felt as if it were immersed in a tub full of fire ants. She couldn't seem to breathe, her head spun, and she felt as if she were going to faint, but caught herself.
Then, just as quickly as it had come, the feeling was gone, and as she slowly opened her eyes, the only after affect she could see was exactly what she expected. Her shirt hung well below her knees, her pants were in a puddle at her feet, which were dwarfed by her sizable sneakers and the neck of her shirt hung below her breasts, which were bare due to the fact that her bra was now hanging at her belly. By quick calculation, she estimated herself to be roughly 30 inches tall.
"Damn!" Rita scowled, "Didn't have it set correctly... "Oh well." She busied herself, pressing buttons to adjust the device as it recharged itself again. "There!" She said, and leveled it once again at the shrunken brunette, who absently hugged the oversized shirt close to her chest. Her tiny hands swallowed up by its sleeves. "Say hello to the microverse for me, okay?" She smiled.
"Why?" Was all the small scientist could manage to say.
Rita was about to tell her, gloat a bit but then only smiled, "Ohhh no... I could tell you," She said, "But I think it'll be much nicer knowing that you're completely clueless while you're shrinking down past the atoms in your jeans," she laughed. "You know, Doc... I would say, 'See you, later' but I won't, will I? No one will..." she added with the cold finality of a death sentence, "EVER," as her thumb moved to the activation button.
The door of the lab suddenly burst open, and a startled Rita spun around. She looked into the eyes of the young shrunken woman's lover, and froze. Just as suddenly as a cat frightened by a passing car, she bolted past the red-haired woman in the doorway and vanished.
